Author
Topic: Skeleton clock (Read 5727 times)

I have been making steam engines for a number of years and could do with a change for my next project,thinking about the skeleton clock by John Wilding,anyone made one of these,I would be interested Don

Chris Raynerd has posted on his experience of building at least one of Wilding's clocks here on MadModder, http://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,5466.0.html so you may want to look at that thread; also searching the MadModder board for Wilding brings up a couple of other hits too.

I have just purchased all the plans for John Parslows Skeleton Clock - looks a good build, fairly simple.

I`ve been looking at clock building for years but have failed on a couple of projects now due to lack of experience, understanding and failing to listen properly to advice! However, last year I did finish Woodwards Gearless Clock written by John Wilding. Wildings plans are well written and I`ve got a small collection of his books. Just as an throw away comment - I personally wouldn`t recommend the gearless clock to anyone as a project anymore!

I would not however recommend Throne`s skeleton clock build since it is plans only and requires a number of module cutters.

I`ve seen Wildings "elegant skeleton clock" a few times now as there is a chap who pretty much has it on display each time from one of the ME clubs. It looks nice but is big and the price of the brass frames alone will be very expensive - and just personal taste it is a little too much for me in terms of the frame look - very classic I know just not for me. The other big one for me was that it requires 3 cutters and actually, I`m not sure if that is including all the pinion cutters of the same module or if it manages to make use of just one. The large wheel clock is just too large for my wheel cutting equipment and again the cost of large sheet brass is expensive.

I`ve decided to go for Parslows Skeleton clock - it uses quite literally two cutters, 0.6Mod W and 0.55Mod 8 leaf pinion cutter - despite the 12 leaf pinion, Parslow believes the 12 leaf can be cut with the 8 leaf cutter with no detrement. Bearing in mind that commercial cyloidal cutters are £70 - £100 per cutter and despite my plan to try and fashion home made cutters - the fewer cutters the better in my opinion for now! The frame again isn`t to my taste, too industrial looking, but I have plans to change that!

As David has said, quite a bit of stuff on my site www.raynerd.co.uk and posted here on madmodder, of various failures and successes with making clock parts!

Get in touch via email - I might have quite a bit of stuff of interest to you.